Bucs Washed Out By Washington In Preseason Finale, 20-13

That’s the proper level of excitement needed to describe an ugly, waterlogged preseason finale, as well. “Lightly attended” would be a gross overstatement of Wednesday’s crowd size as the league went forward with a game played in a steady rain from start to finish.

OFFENSE? WHAT OFFENSE?
Buccaneers backups put on a pitiful display with the ball. Tampa Bay entered the second quarter with minus-3 total yards of offense and didn’t get that number out of the red until its eighth and final possession of the first half. To crack the century mark? The Bucs finally did that with a little less than 6 minutes left in the game.

For the night, Washington outgained Tampa Bay 301-213.

NOTHING UNDER CENTER
Conditions were terrible, but so were the performances of quarterbacks Mike Glennon and Ryan Griffin.

Glennon played four series and completed 1 of 5 passes for negative-1 yard. Griffin went the rest of the way and threw an interception on his first attempt. He finished 23 of 38 for 190 yards and one touchdowns with less than a minute to play.

MACK TRUCK
Former Florida Gator running back Mack Brown plowed through Bucs defenders to become the “star” of the fourth preseason game.

Brown rushed for 149 yards on 19 carries, including an impressing 60-yard touchdown in the second quarter that featured a handful of missed Bucs tackles.

Brown was joined by Robert Kelley in slicing and dicing the Tampa Bay run defense. The out of Tulane took 16 attempts 99 yards and the Redskins finished with 245 on the ground for the game.

COULDN’T FINISH
A few unfortunate Bucs weren’t able to finish out Wednesday night without a visit to the trainer.

Receiver Kenny Bell (one catch for 13 yards) was getting checked for a concussion in the third quarter after failing to haul in his second of two targets.

Rookie safety Ryan Smith left with a hand injury in the second quarter but did come back and returned a third-quarter kick 25 yards. Rookie tight end Kivon Cartwright suffered a second-quarter shoulder injury.

FINISH STRONG
Receiver Bernard Reedy had himself an up-and-down night as he tried to impress enough to survive final cuts Saturday afternoon.

It started with a decent 17-yard punt return but took a turn for the worse when he muffed his next opportunity and nearly coughed up possession after the recovery.

Reedy, a St. Petersburg native, did manage to settle himself down. He returned a kick in the second quarter 22 yards and caught three of four targets for 19 yards. The final of those grabs were the most impactful, getting open in the end zone with less than a minute left to secure a 9-yard touchdown pass from Griffin.

NEXT UP
Enough of this preseason mess. The regular season begins in 11 days when Tampa Bay travels to Atlanta for Week 1. Prior to the Sept. 11 opener, the next big day for Bucs fans to look forward to is Saturday when all 32 NFL teams must cut their rosters down to 53 players.

2 Comments

I was all set (before the game even began) to write the usual “who cares about this game, if any of these guys ever make the field we’re already up the creek” comment….BUT, then I watched (by my count) 6 “regulars” (i.e., guys that will either start or see significant snaps for us) actually in the game.
ASJ
J. Smith
N, Spence
A. Spence
Gholston
ATV
…and so I had to watch how these “regulars” would tear apart the Skins 2nd teamers….well:
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I can give ASJ a pass because quite frankly Glennon forgot how to throw the ball forward (yes it was wet but the rookie from Indiana didn’t seem to have such problems), while RG4 was doing his best Josh McCown impersonation.
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ATV actually played alright IMO, so no need to worry much there.
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But what the heck happened to our DLine? We trotted out 4 guys that could conceivably be our actual DLine at some point if we get an injury or two….and they got absolutely man-handled by a bunch of subs, some of which won’t even make the Skins practice squad. Think about that…
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So my big takeaway, apart from the preseason is irrelevant, is that yes we better bubble wrap Winston or the season is done, but we better treat GMC-McDonald-Ayers with a lot of love too!!!!